Summary: What is the defining mark of your life? For those connected to Jesus, the true vine, the fruit of our lives should have THE SWEET TASTE OF LOVE!

Think with me for just a moment. If you were given only ONE WORD to describe Jesus, what would that word be? What single word best describes His heart for people, His personality as He interacted with His disciples and others He came into contact with? What word best describes how Christ has related to you? Have you thought of your word? Okay now keep your word locked in your mind, and don’t change it. What was your word? (The majority should choose “love” or a form of the word.)

I’m dating myself I know, but there’s an old song sung by Dion Warwick that said, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That’s the very thing that there’s just too little of.” If we stop and think about how we described Jesus, the, then what the world really needs then and now is Jesus, sweet Jesus!

Jesus told His disciples, “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you. . . the harvest is sure to be abundant” (John 15:5, The Message). What is the life source that flows from the vine to the branches which produces the fruit? What is it that we as believers have within us by His Holy Spirit because we are connected to the vine?

It may be an over simplification, but I believe it is safe to say that THE LIFE SOURCE OR THE ENERGY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT WITHIN US IS LOVE.

As we will see today, because the love of Christ fills our lives the fruit of our life should have the sweet taste of love. NO MATTER HOW YOU MAY DESCRIBE THE FRUIT WHICH SHOULD BE PRODUCED THROUGH THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER--

▸ the fruit of obedience,

▸ the fruit of reproduction, or

▸ the fruit of the Spirit,

THAT FRUIT SHOULD HAVE THE AROMA AND REFRESHING FLAVOR OF LOVE.

If your life was to be described with just a single word, what word would it be? Would you be described like Jesus as loving? If you are connected to Christ, then the fruit of your life should be increasingly more and more marked by “the sweet taste of love”.

+ John 15:9-17 9As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-- fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other. (NIV)

1. CHRIST’S LOVE DOES NOT FAIL.

Americans today “love” everything. I can say that I “love” my wife and kids, but I can also “love” a movie, new clothes, a car, or truck. I can “love” the way a friend got even with someone who did us both dirty. I can “love” Mexican, Chinese, or Italian, food. These days if you name it, someone probably “loves” it!